October 19, 2010

Photos from Younghusband's 1903 Expedition to Tibet

In 1903, Sir Francis Younghusband led an expedition into Tibet during the latter part of the famed Great Game era. It was not a gentle expedition, and while the ultimate goal of establishing British ties to Lhasa before the Russians was accomplished, it came at a high cost to Tibetans in many savage battles along the way.

Co-leading the expedition with Younghusband was John Claude White, the Political Officer for Sikkim. Throughout the expedition, White snapped off many photographs

of still-forbidden Tibet, documenting the people and places of this far-off land. The images were later passed on to Lieut. William Pyt Bennett, who passed them on to his heirs; they remained in Bennett's family for over a century.

Just a few weeks ago, they re-emerged on the auction block at Bonhams...and sold for an amazing £38,400, or $60,400!

While I, nor presumably most of you, won't ever have a chance to see these images from a Tibet now long gone, you can fortunately see some of them online; I've put together what I could find in an album, below.

But, be sure to see the links below for more info on these amazing, rare images of Tibet over 100 years ago!

If you want to read more about this collection, here are some related links:

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Hi Jake,

I love that classic shot of the Potala Palace - here's my own shot taken almost 100 years later - complete with Budweiser truck! So much change, and I hear there have been even more changes since I was there in 2000.

I was in the film Gyantse 1904 which was filmed at the actual sites. At the fort in Gyantse is the typical Chinese propaganda museum. There are clips of the film on youtube; I'm in the post of uploading my own copy which should be of better quality.